Some components within computers, whether hardware and/or software, depend on being configured with certain configuration settings in order to optimally function with other components. When a component is replaced with a new/updated component, it may affect the ability of other components to interact with the new/updated component because the other components may not be properly configured to interact with its settings.
For example, a performance monitoring component, such as the “perfmon” system call used in the HP-UX operating system, may depend on specific register definitions and implementations when interacting with a processor, such as the Itanium line made by Intel. In particular, the Itanium has an embedded performance monitoring unit (PMU) that interacts with perfmon. The PMU can vary for each new model of the processor. To ensure optimal operation between perfmon and the PMU, perfmon should be initialized with configuration values that are specific for the processor model of the PMU. This requires foreknowledge of the PMU definition for each supported model of processor, if a software release to support the model is to be released on the same timeframe as the processor model. In prior art systems, the kernel and/or perfmon were re-configured for the new model by way of a kernel patch or source edit and rebuild. In some cases, a new operating system release would have to be performed to implement the new configurations so that perfmon could function with the new processor. This is typically time consuming and costly.